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Commitments and Contingencies
3 Months Ended
Apr. 30, 2025
Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]  
Commitments and Contingencies Commitments and Contingencies
Non-cancelable Purchase Obligations
During the three months ended April 30, 2025, there have been no material changes to our non-cancelable purchase obligations from those disclosed in Note 9. “Commitments and Contingencies” in the notes to consolidated financial statements included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended January 31, 2025 filed with the SEC on February 28, 2025.
Legal Proceedings
In June 2020, we received a grand jury subpoena from the Department of Justice’s U.S. Attorney’s Office for Eastern District of New York (“EDNY”), which requested information regarding our interactions with foreign governments and foreign political parties, including the Chinese government, as well as information regarding storage of and access to user data, the development and implementation of Zoom’s privacy policies, and the actions we took responding to law enforcement requests from the Chinese government. In July 2020, we received subpoenas from the Department of Justice’s U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California (“NDCA”) and the SEC. Both subpoenas seek documents and information relating to various security, data protection and privacy matters, including our encryption, and our statements relating thereto, as well as calculation of usage metrics and related public statements. In addition, the NDCA subpoena seeks information relating to any contacts between our employees and representatives of the Chinese government, and any attempted or successful influence by any foreign government in our policies, procedures, practices, and actions as they relate to users in the United States. We have since received additional subpoenas from EDNY and NDCA seeking related information. We are fully cooperating with all of these investigations and have conducted our own thorough internal investigation. These investigations are ongoing, and a negative outcome in any or all of these matters could cause us to incur substantial fines, penalties, or other financial exposure, as well as reputational harm. During the fiscal year ended January 31, 2025, we recorded an $18.0 million accrual with respect to a tentative settlement offer for the SEC matter that remains subject to SEC approval. We do not know when these matters will be completed, including the SEC matter, which facts we will ultimately discover as a result of the investigations, or what actions the government may or may not take. We are unable to predict the ultimate outcome of these matters and are unable to reasonably estimate any range of possible loss beyond the $18.0 million settlement offer for the SEC matter.
On June 11, 2020 and July 30, 2020, purported shareholder derivative complaints were filed in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. The first complaint names as defendants nine of our officers and directors, and the second complaint names eight of our officers and directors. The lawsuits assert state and federal claims and are based on the same alleged misstatements as the shareholder class action complaint. The lawsuits accuse our board of directors of failing to exercise reasonable and prudent supervision over our management, policies, practices, and internal controls. The plaintiffs seek unspecified monetary damages on behalf of us as well as governance reforms. On September 25, 2020, the derivative cases were consolidated. On October 27, 2021, a third substantially identical lawsuit was filed in the same court against the same defendants, seeking unspecified monetary damages and governance reforms. On November 17, 2021, all three derivative lawsuits were consolidated. The consolidated case was stayed pending resolution of the motion to dismiss the securities class action. On April 11, 2023, the court entered a stipulated order that required defendants to answer, move, or otherwise respond to the operative complaint by June 12, 2023. On June 12, 2023, defendants filed a motion to dismiss the consolidated case. On August 11, 2023, the plaintiff in the consolidated case filed an amended complaint. On October 18, 2023, defendants filed their motion to dismiss the amended complaint. On December 22, 2023, plaintiff filed her opposition to the motion to dismiss, and on January 26, 2024, defendants filed their reply in support of the motion to dismiss. On April 1, 2024, the parties notified the court that the parties are engaged in good-faith, material settlement discussions, and requested that the court stay any proceedings and rulings in connection with the pending motion to dismiss while the parties attempt to reach a proposed resolution of this action. On April 2, 2024, the Court stayed the case. On January 14, 2025, the parties executed a Stipulation of Settlement (“Stipulation”) to resolve this matter. Under the terms of the Stipulation, in exchange for the release and dismissal with prejudice of all claims against all defendants in the matter, Zoom agreed to enact certain corporate governance reforms and to pay plaintiff’s counsel a fee award of up to $1.35 million. On January 16, 2025, plaintiff filed a motion for preliminary approval of the settlement. On February 6, 2025, the court held a hearing on the motion for preliminary approval of the settlement. On April 16, 2025, the court preliminarily approved the settlement. The Stipulation and settlement remain subject to final approval by the court. We accrued the $1.35 million fee award and recorded it as a general and administrative expense in our consolidated statement of operations for the year ended January 31, 2025.
We are vigorously defending ourselves against these lawsuits. Given the uncertainty of litigation, the preliminary stage of the cases, and the legal standards that must be met for, among other things, class certification and success on the merits, except as otherwise described above, we cannot estimate the reasonably possible loss or range of loss that may result from these actions.
On April 7, 2020 and April 8, 2020, securities class action complaints were filed against us and two of our officers in the United States District Court for the NDCA. The plaintiffs are purported stockholders of ours. The complaints allege, among other things, that we violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Exchange Act, and Rule 10b-5 by making false and misleading statements and omissions of material fact about our data privacy and security measures. The complaints seek unspecified damages, interest, fees, and costs. On May 18, 2020, the actions were consolidated. On November 4, 2020, the court appointed a lead plaintiff. On December 23, 2020, the lead plaintiff filed a consolidated complaint. We filed a motion to dismiss the consolidated complaint on May 20, 2021. Plaintiff filed an opposition to our motion to dismiss on July 9, 2021. Our reply in support of the motion to dismiss was filed on August 9, 2021. On February 16, 2022, the court granted in part, and denied in part, our motion to dismiss. On March 14, 2022, we moved for reconsideration of the court’s ruling on the motion to dismiss.
On March 22, 2022, the court ordered plaintiff to respond to our motion, which plaintiff did on March 29, 2022. On April 22, 2022, we answered the complaint. On March 8, 2023, the court denied our motion for reconsideration. On April 6, 2023, the court entered a scheduling order. On July 17, 2023, the parties entered into a stipulation and agreement of settlement (the “Stipulation”) to resolve this matter. Under the terms of the stipulation, in exchange for the release and dismissal with prejudice of all claims against all defendants in the matter, we have agreed to pay and/or cause our insurance carriers to pay a total of $150.0 million. The Stipulation and settlement remain subject to preliminary and final approval by the court. On July 25, 2023, the court entered an order staying further proceedings in the matter pending the filing of a motion for preliminary approval of the settlement. On October 17, 2023, lead plaintiff filed a motion for preliminary approval of the settlement. A hearing on the motion for preliminary approval was held on June 13, 2024, but the court has yet to enter a preliminary approval order. As a result of the settlement, we made net payments of $60.0 million ($150.0 million for the settlement net of $90.0 million covered by insurance) during the year ended January 31, 2024, of which $7.5 million had been accrued during the year ended January 31, 2023 and $52.5 million was recorded as a general and administrative expense in our consolidated statement of operations for the year ended January 31, 2024.
In addition, from time to time, we are involved in various other legal proceedings arising from the normal course of business activities. We are not presently a party to any other such litigation the outcome of which, we believe, if determined adversely to us, would individually, or taken together, have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, cash flows, or financial condition. Defending such proceedings is costly and can impose a significant burden on management and employees. We may receive unfavorable preliminary or interim rulings in the course of litigation, and there can be no assurances that favorable final outcomes will be obtained.